Henry Seton Merriman

“ My dear Paul, you cannot keep up the farce any longer. You are not an English gentleman who comes across here for sporting purposes; you do not live in the old Castle of Osterno three months in the year because you have a taste for mediaeval fortresses. You are a Russian prince, and your estates are the happiest, the most enlightened in the empire. That alone is suspicious. You collect your rents yourself. You have no German agents—no German vampires about you. There are a thousand things suspicious about Prince Pavlo Alexis if those that be in high places only come to think about it. ”

“ Catrina never drove with bells. There was no sound beyond the high-pitched drone of the steel runners over the powdery snow. They were alone; unseen, unheard save of that Ear that listens in the waste places of the world.
“What do you want me to do?” she asked.
“Oh, not very much!” answered De Chauxville—a cautious man, who knew a woman’s humor. Catrina driving a pair of ponies in the clear, sharp air of Central Russia, and Catrina playing the piano in the enervating, flower-scented atmosphere of a drawing-room, were two different women. ”

“ So quiet, indeed, was its progress that Karl Steinmetz—suddenly white-headed, as strong old men are apt to find themselves—did not heed its approach. He was sitting on the bank with a gun, a little rifle, lying on the grass beside him. He was half-asleep in the enjoyment of a large Havana cigar. The rays of the setting sun, peeping through the lower branches, made him blink lazily like a large, good-natured cat.
He turned his head slowly, with a hunter’s consciousness of the approach of some one, and contemplated the canoe with a sense of placid satisfaction. ”

“ Petersburg under snow is the most picturesque city in the world. The town is at its best when a high wind has come from the north to blow all the snow from the cupola of St. Isaac’s, leaving that golden dome, in all its brilliancy, to gleam and flash over the whitened sepulchre of a city.
In winter the Neva is a broad, silent thoroughfare between the Vassili Ostrow and the Admiralty Gardens. In the winter the pestilential rattle of the cobble-stones in the side streets is at last silent, and the merry music of sleigh-bells takes its place. ”

“ Looked at casually, Tver and Sahara’s plains are level, and it is only in crossing them that one realizes the gentle up and down beneath the horses’ feet.
Soon Steinmetz raised his head and sniffed in a loud Teutonic manner. It was the reek of water; for great rivers, like the ocean, have their smell. And the Volga is a revelation. Men travel far to see a city, but few seem curious about a river. Every river has, nevertheless, its individuality, its great silent interest. Every river has, moreover, its influence, which extends to the people who pass their lives within sight of its waters. ”

“ Paul was looking down at his companion, as if waiting to hear the time. At great moments we are suddenly brought face to face with the limits of human nature. It is at such moments that we find that we are not gods, but only men. We can only feel to a certain extent, only suffer up to a certain point.
“We must dress for dinner,” said Steinmetz. ”

“ Ce cher Vassili!” returned Steinmetz, taking the hand.
“It is good of you, M. le Prince, and you, madame, to honor us in our small house,” said the marquise in a guttural voice such as one might expect from within ruby velvet and amethysts. Thereafter she subsided into silence and obscurity so far as the evening was concerned and the present historian is interested.
“So,” said Vassili, with a comprehensive bow to all his guests—“so you are bound for Russia. But I envy you—I envy you. You know Russia, Mme. la Princesse?”
Etta met his veiled gaze calmly. ”

“ Maggie was alone in the great drawing-room of the house at the end of the English Quay—alone and grave. Some people, be it noted, are gravest when alone, and they are wise, for the world has too much gravity for us to go about it with a long face, making matters worse. Let each of us be the centre of his own gravity. Maggie Delafield had, perhaps, that spark in the brain for which we have but an ugly word. ”

“ When he was in London with Etta Sydney Bamborough he did not, however, forget Osterno. He only longed for the time when he could take Etta freely into his confidence and engage her interest in the object of his ambition—namely, to make the huge Osterno estate into that lump of leaven which might in time leaven the whole of the empire.
That a man is capable of sustaining two absorbing interests at once is a matter of every-day illustration. Are we not surrounded by men who do their work well in life, and love their wives well at home, without allowing the one to interfere with the other? ”

“ Catrina looked at her mother with a gleam of utter contempt in her eyes. That is one of the privileges of a great love, whether it bring happiness or misery—the contempt for all who have never known it.
While they remained thus the sound of sleigh-bells on the quiet English Quay made itself heard through the double windows. There was a clang of many tones, and the horses pulled up with a jerk. The color left Catrina’s face quite suddenly, as if wiped away, leaving her ghastly. She was going to see Paul and his wife. ”

“ A score of times Catrina approached the subject, and with imperturbable steadfastness Maggie held to her determination that Paul was not to be discussed by them. She warded, she evaded, she ignored with a skill which baffled the simple Russian. She had a hundred subterfuges—a hundred skilful turns and twists. Where women learn these matters, Heaven only knows! All our experience of the world, our falls and stumbles on the broken road of life, never teach us some things that are known to the veriest schoolgirl standing on the smoother footpath that women tread. ”

“ Since their marriage she had never been so beautiful, her eyes had never been so sparkling, her color so brilliant as at this moment when she asked her husband to let her use her title. Hers was the beauty that blooms not for one man alone, but for the multitude; that feeds not on the love of one, but on the admiration of many. The murmur of the man in the street who turned and stared into her carriage was more than the devotion of her husband.
“A foreign title,” answered Paul, “is nothing in England. I soon found that out at Eton and at Trinity. ”

“ On either bank stand whispering beech-trees, and so low is the music of the leaves that the message of Ely’s distant bells floats through them on a quiet evening as far as Brandon and beyond it.
Three years after Etta’s death, in the glow of an April sunset, a Canadian canoe was making its stealthy way up the river. The paddle crept in and out so gently, so lazily and peacefully, that the dabchicks and other waterfowl did not cease their chatter of nests and other April matters as the canoe glided by. ”

“ She wanted to make Paul Alexis love her; and, womanlike, she clung to the one womanly charm that was hers—the wonderful golden hair. Pathetic, aye, pathetic—with a grin behind the pathos, as there ever is.
She sat down at the piano, and her strong, small hands tore the heart out of each wire. There are some people who get farther into a piano than others, making the wires speak as with a voice. Catrina Lanovitch had this trick. She only played a Russian people-song—a simple lay such as one may hear issuing from the door of any kabak on a summer evening. ”

“ There was a queer little smile on Etta’s face—a smile, one might have thought, of contempt.
“Yes, of course,” she said. “It is so nice to be able to do good with one’s money.”
Paul looked at her in his slow, grave way, but he said nothing. He knew that his wife was cleverer and brighter than himself. He was simple enough to think that this superiority of intellect might be devoted to the good of the peasants of Osterno.
“It is not a bad place,” he said—“a very fine castle, one of the finest in Europe. ”

“ She was bright and amusing, guileless and very worldly wise in the same breath—simple for Paul and a match for De Chauxville, within the space of three seconds. Withal she was a beautiful woman beautifully dressed. A thousand times too wise to scorn her womanhood, as learned fools are prone to do in print and on platform in these wordy days, but wielding the strongest power on earth, to wit, that same womanhood, with daring and with skill. A learned woman is not of much account in the world. ”

“ Etta looked at him. Was his wit going to desert him now when he most needed it? He had ridden boldly into the lion’s den. Such a proceeding requires a certain courage, but a higher form of intrepidity is required to face the lion standing before the exit.
De Chauxville looked at Steinmetz with shifty eyes. He was very like the mask of the lynx in the smoking-room, even to the self-conscious, deprecatory smile on the countenance of the forest sneak.
“Keep your temper,” he said; “do not let us quarrel in the presence of a lady.” ”

“ Catrina hated Etta Sydney Bamborough with a simple half-barbaric hatred because she had gained the love of Paul Alexis. Etta had taken away from her the only man whom Catrina could ever love all through her life. The girl was simple enough, unsophisticated enough, never to dream of compromise. She never for a moment entertained the cheap, consolatory thought that in time she would get over it; she would marry somebody else, and make that compromise which is responsible for more misery in this world than ever is vice. ”

“ All around them the steppe lay in grim and lifeless silence. In such a scene, where life seemed rare and precious, death gained in its power of inspiring fear. It is different in crowded cities, where an excess of human life seems to vouch for the continuity of the race, where, in a teeming population, one life more or less seems of little value. The rosy hue of sunset was fading to a clear green, and in the midst of a cloudless sky, Jupiter—very near the earth at that time—shone intense, and brilliant like a lamp. ”

“ The sounds approached.
“Half-way up!” said Paul, and they ran half-way up the broad staircase side by side. There they stood and waited.
In a moment the baize doors were burst open, and a scuffling mass of men and women poured into the hall—a very sewer of humanity.
A yell of execration signalized their recognition of the prince.
“They are mad!” said Steinmetz, as the crowd surged forward toward the stairs with waving arms and the dull gleam of steel; with wild faces turned upward, wild mouths bellowing hatred and murder.
“It is a chance—it may stop them!” said Steinmetz. ”

“ Beyond Etta a black form lay across the passage, all trodden underfoot and dishevelled. Paul held the lamp down, and through the mud and blood Claude de Chauxville’s clear-cut features were outlined.
Death is always unmistakable, though it be shown by nothing more than a heap of muddy clothes.
Claude de Chauxville was lying across the passage. He had been trodden underfoot by the stream of maddened peasants who had entered by this door which had been opened for them, whom Steinmetz had checked at the foot of the stairs by shooting their ringleader. ”

“ Maggie glanced toward the canoe. She drew a short, sharp breath, but she did not move.
“Mademoiselle,” said Steinmetz earnestly, “I am an old man, and in my time I have dabbled pretty deeply in trouble. But taking it all around, even my life has had its compensations. And I have seen lives which, taken as a mere mortal existence, without looking to the hereafter at all, have been quite worth the living. There is much happiness in life to make up for the rest. But that happiness must be firmly held. It is so easily slipped through the fingers. ”

“ You do not know what it is to hate—or to care.”
“Perhaps we do,” said Maggie; “but we say less about it.”
Catrina turned and looked at her with a queer smile.
“Less!” she laughed. “Nothing—you say nothing. Paul is the same. I have seen. I know. You have said nothing since you came to Thors. You have talked and laughed; you have given opinions; you have spoken of many things, but you have said nothing. You are the same as Paul—one never knows. I know nothing about you. But I like you. You are her cousin?” ”

“ That which Paul Howard Alexis felt at this time for Etta was merely the chivalrous instinct that teaches men their primary duty toward women—namely, to protect and respect them. But out of this instinct grows the better thing—Love.
There are some women whose desire it is to be all things to all men instead of every thing to one. This was the stumbling-block in the way of Etta Bamborough. It was her instinct to please all at any price, and her obedience to such instinct was often unconscious. ”

“ He was too epigrammatic for her, and beneath the brilliancy of his epigram she felt at times the presence of something dark and nauseous. Her mental attitude toward him was contemptuous and perfectly polite. With the reputation of possessing a dangerous fascination—one of those reputations which can only emanate from the man himself—M. de Chauxville neither fascinated nor intimidated Miss Delafield. He therefore disliked her intensely. His vanity was colossal, and when a Frenchman is vain he is childishly so.
M. de Chauxville watched the door close behind Miss Delafield with a queer smile. ”

“ I have man’s work to do. I can occupy myself with ambition. At all events, I have a man’s privilege of nursing revenge.”
He saw her eyes light up, her breast heave with a sudden sigh. Something like a smile wavered for a moment beneath his waxed mustache.
Catrina’s fingers, supple and strong, struck in great chords the air of a gloomy march from the half-forgotten muse of some monastic composer. While she played, Claude de Chauxville proceeded with his delicate touch to play on the hidden chords of an untamed heart. ”

“ It is a suspected house, and watched; for here dwelt Stipan Lanovitch, secretary and organizer of the Charity League.
Although the outward appearance of the house is uninviting, the interior is warm and dainty. The odor of delicate hot-house plants is in the slightly enervating atmosphere of the apartments. It is a Russian fancy to fill the dwelling-rooms with delicate, forced foliage and bloom. In no country of the world are flowers so worshipped, is money so freely spent in floral decoration. ”

“ Chivalry bids us believe that women guard the secret of their love inviolate from the world. But what was Catrina to do? Men are in the habit of forgetting that plain women are women at all. Surely some of them may be excused for reminding us at times that they also are capable of loving—that they also desire to be loved. Happy is the man who loves and is loved of a plain woman; for she will take her own lack of beauty into consideration, and give him more than most beautiful women have it in their power to give. ”

“ There is nothing so disarming as the assumed air of intimate knowledge of one’s private thoughts and actions. De Chauxville assumed this air with a skill against which Catrina’s dogged strength of character was incapable of battling. His manner conveyed the impression that he knew more of Catrina’s inward thoughts than any other living being, and she was simple enough to be frightened into the conclusion that she had betrayed herself to him. There is no simpler method of discovering a secret than to ignore its existence. ”

“ We are all part of what we have seen. We all carry with us through life somewhat of the scenes through which we passed in childhood.
Maggie knew now where Paul had learnt the quiet concentration of mind, the absorption in his own affairs, the complete lack of interest in the business of his neighbor which made him different from other men. He had learnt these things at first hand from God’s creatures. These forest-dwellers of fur and feather went about their affairs in the same absorbed way, with the same complete faith, the same desire to leave and be left alone. ”